psychlotron.org.uk What did you have for breakfast? What’s in porridge? How do you make a cup of tea?

psychlotron.org.uk Today’s session You are learning about...You are learning to... Types of memory Autobiographical memory Draw conclusions from empirical evidence Use evidence to evaluate psychological theories

psychlotron.org.uk Types of Memory Tulving (1972) – Semantic memory store of general factual knowledge about the world – Episodic memory store of past experiences (could be from another source) Cohen & Squire (1980) – Declarative memory Knowing what – Procedural memory Knowing how

psychlotron.org.uk Types of memory How could we investigate the idea that there are actually different types of memory?

psychlotron.org.uk Evidence for different types of memory Tulving (1989) Corkin (1968) Heindel et al (1988)

psychlotron.org.uk Autobiographical memory What might be meant by ‘autobiographical memory’? Memory for information relating to the self: – Facts about the self – Memory of past experiences Specific e.g. Your twelfth birthday Generic e.g. What your school day was like

psychlotron.org.uk What do people remember? Rubin et al (1986)

psychlotron.org.uk Rubin et al (1986) Why do people have a reminiscence bump? – Frequent rehearsal – Greater distinctiveness (more ‘firsts’) Why do people have infantile amnesia? – Immature memory systems in brain – Lack of language to structure memories – Repression (Freud)

psychlotron.org.uk Evidence Studies of autobiographical memory: – Rubin et al (1986) – Bahrick et al (1975) – Linton (1986) – Waagenar (1986) What conclusions can be drawn from these studies? What problems are there with the validity of these studies?